


A Letter of Hope

by Dorsetgirl_hetfic (DorsetGirl)



Series: Letters With Marie-Angelique [1]
Category: Sharpe (TV), Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorsetGirl/pseuds/Dorsetgirl_hetfic
Summary: Sharpe receives a letter from Marie-Angelique Bonnet, whom he last saw in India in 1818.
Relationships: Marie-Angelique Bonnet & Richard Sharpe
Series: Letters With Marie-Angelique [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201298
Kudos: 2





	A Letter of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in February of 1821. It follows on from the televised India stories, _Sharpe’s Challenge_ and _Sharpe’s Peril_ in which we learned that, unlike the books, Lucille had died of a fever in the winter of 1816-17. 
> 
> Taking this together with the fact that _Sharpe’s Devil_ (1820) was never filmed, and that _Sharpe’s Assassin_ (1815) will at the very least never be filmed with a 38-year-old Sean Bean in the title role, I consider that book canon and tv canon parted ways significantly and irrevocably immediately after the Battle of Waterloo.
> 
> In addition I was personally never that convinced of Sharpe’s conversion to the bucolic lifestyle, so I’m giving him the chance of a post-1821 future with Marie-Angelique, should he want it.

~ ~ ~

Sharpe wiped the mud off his hands and swung the kettle over the fire. A cup of tea and some snap before he finished mending the back fence, then he’d have a look at the apple trees before tomorrow’s pruning. He hoped to get a good crop this year - there hardly seemed any point living in Normandy if you didn’t make Calvados.

Though this time of year there didn’t seem much point living anywhere, or indeed at all. He’d thought it before - every year at this time, now he came to think of it - but lately he could scarce think of anything else. All the time he’d been in India he’d been longing to get back here, to this quiet place he’d shared with Lucille, but without her calm presence it had become a deathly silent place he shared with no-one. 

Sometimes he wondered what he was waiting for, why he didn’t just sell up and move back to England, or go and see Pat in Ireland. Though he knew the answer to that one. Being with Pat and Ramona and their many children just made him remember what he’d lost - Lucille and the children he’d never had time to have with her, Teresa and the child he’d never had the chance to know.

He finished his tea and went back to work, then - fence mended and dinner warming - he walked down the drive towards the orchard. His thoughts on how best to tackle the pruning were interrupted by a man’s voice hailing him from the road.

“Colonel Sharpe?”

“Oui, qui est là?”

A man appeared from the gloom beyond the gateway, dust on his boots and travel weariness evident on his face and in his walk. 

“Je m’appelle Michel Bonnet. Je vous apporte une lettre.”

“Une lettre? Eh, Bonnet, vous avez dit?”

“Oui, Colonel.”

Sharpe realised he’d need to invite the man in, but he wasn’t sure how much food there was. He’d spent too many years eating what little someone else had managed to find for him to take dinner as seriously as the French did, but he didn’t want to be rude. To give himself time to think about it he said,

“C'est ‘monsieur’, s'il vous plaît, pas ‘Colonel’. Je ne suis plus soldat.”

Of course, last time he’d said those words he’d ended up fighting another of Wellington’s wars for him, practically single-handed, but this man looked no soldier turned politician. He looked what Sharpe tried hard to be satisfied with being - a prosperous farmer.

“Ravi, monsieur, de faire votre connaissance.” They shook hands. The man seemed little inclined to hand over the letter, but as Sharpe hadn’t spoken to any but the cowman in more than a week, he wasn’t particularly minded to hurry the man away. 

“If you have a moment, M.Bonnet, I was about to inspect my apple trees - I’m pruning tomorrow. Oh, je m'excuse - vous parlez Anglais?”

They fell into step alongside the newly mended fence, Bonnet looking around him approvingly.

“Oui, Monsieur, yes I do, I was in business in Oporto for some years. I taught my niece, in fact; elle m’a tellement parlé de vous.”

Sharpe stopped abruptly.

“Your niece? Your niece has spoken to you - of me?”

“Oui, she is the daughter of my brother Jacques. She tells me she knew you in that terrible business in India, but perhaps you will not remember. Marie-Angelique is her name.”

Sharpe found himself smiling. Not remember Marie-Angelique, the beautiful and headstrong young woman who had transformed during the course of a never-to-be-forgotten journey into something approaching a friend? True, she’d been bloody insufferable to begin with - he smiled again at the memory of some of the things he’d called her - but by the end of the journey she had shown herself equal to any situation and had proved the only person apart from Pat Harper who had any appreciation of the multiple burdens Sharpe carried. Her unspoken understanding had been a comfort in some of the hardest times.

It was only after he’d arrived home that he’d realised what she’d really been trying to say on that last day, when she told him he was a good man, and that she might visit him, and had even kissed him, but that was all past now. No-one in Paris cared a jot about scandals in India, having more than enough of their own to intrigue over, so she would be sedately married by now, her bloom fading into genteel maturity as her children grew. 

For a man twice her age who’d buried two wives he’d been disconcerted to find how often he thought of her, but he’d become adept at turning away from idle desires and it had been getting easier to forget her. After all, they had nothing in common apart from a few desperate weeks in the Indian heat.

Dragging his thoughts back to the present, it appeared that Bonnet was familiar with orchard management, and they exchanged some polite words over the apple trees but Sharpe’s heart was no longer in it. He wanted to read the letter. He persuaded Bonnet to return to the house with him, where he opened a bottle of the local wine he’d traded for giving the maire’s son sword-fighting lessons back in the Autumn, and was relieved to find the dinner he’d prepared would stretch for two.

They ate in silence for a while, Sharpe never having been one for small talk, but eventually he could wait no longer.

“So, monsieur - the letter? From Miss Bonnet?”

“Oh bien sûr, pardonnez-moi. Je suis fou - trop fatigué de voyager. In fact, I must go, my wife will worry.”

Bonnet stood and reached into a pocket. Drawing out a small packet he handed it over to Sharpe and took his leave with promises to call again in a few days on his way back to Paris.

Impatient now, Sharpe made himself wait until he’d waved Bonnet off down the road, closed the gate behind him, shut up the hens for the night and closed the shutters all round the house. Finally, he poured more wine and settled himself near the fire. His knife lived on the mantel now rather than on the back of his belt, and he slit open the packet, drawing out a single sheet of sweet-scented paper.

~ ~ ~

Mon cher Colonel Sharpe,

I have thought of you so often since we parted in India. May I hope that you have once or twice thought of me? 

I would like so much to see you again and so I have taken the liberty of requesting my uncle Michel to deliver this letter on his return to Normandie. He assures me there are not so many farms habited by famous English soldiers that it will be difficult to find you.

Richard - if I may call you Richard? It is how I think of you - it would mean so much to me if you would allow me to visit you. I am no longer petulant, nor I think spoiled, selfish or shrewish, though I hope you will forgive me for saying that I think you did not entirely dislike my wilfulness.

 ~~Mon oncle Michel me dit que~~ My uncle Michel says that the roads may be passable for a small carriage by the end of March. He will not hear of my riding though of course you know me better!

Please Richard, say I may come? Michel says he will send a man to escort me, which I will accept, though his offer to deliver me to you with a servant to protect my reputation I will not! A woman won at cards and affianced to such a man as Philippe Joubert has not so much reputation to be concerned about, and I know I can trust you to do me no ill.

Dans l'attente de vous lire, je vous prie de croire, mon cher Colonel, à l'assurance de mes salutations distinguées.

Cordialement,

Marie-Angelique Bonnet

~ ~ ~

Sharpe read and re-read the letter, the fire burning down unnoticed and the candles guttering until he could no longer see the finely scribed lines.

He folded the page and replaced it in the packet, holding it close as he stared into the remains of the fire and thought about his answer until the last candle flickered and died.

~ ~ ~


End file.
